Wednesday, 28 May 2014

The BBC dealt a further blow to Alex Salmond’s referendum hopes
last Sunday night by revealing that conventional arithmetic no longer applies in
Scotland.

“Fourth is the new first,” smirked David Dimbleby. “That
makes UKIP the European election winners for North Britain, and if Alex doesn’t
like it, he can complain to BBC Glasgow.
Care to join me in a celebratory titter, Professor Curtice?”

As dancing erupted in the streets of Kensington, pasty-faced
Danny Alexander emerged from hiding to confirm, “This is a shattering
development for the separatists. Alex
Salmond arrogantly assumes that the traditional system of counting is his personal
property. But the truth is that, by
daring to take its future into its own hands, Scotland is walking away from
sensible sums and into a world where numbers mean only what Westminster says
they mean.”

Entirely by coincidence, the UK Treasury backed up Mr Alexander’s
view by releasing the latest cataclysmic figures on the costs of independence
for him to stand in front of. These
conclusively proved, through a lot of squiggles and arrows you wouldn’t
understand, that upon separation the Scottish Government would need to create
17.8 entirely new public bodies for each man, woman and child in Scotland, and
that this would make the whole silly project cost more money than there was in
the entire universe.

Speaking for Labour, Johann Lamont, chief paper-clip
organiser at the Scottish branch, didn’t know what to think, since no-one had
given her a script and, anyway, there hadn’t been a debate yet. Her motor-mouth deputy Anas Sore-Ear was somewhat
less reticent, telling slavering reporters, “Abandoning proper adding up is a
move Labour have been advocating for years.
It allows us to pool and share resources without drawing attention to there
being bugger-all to dish out in the first place.
Now boom and bust, far from being abolished, can co-exist
simultaneously, depending on which dangerous ideologue is massaging the
figures.”

Turning to the referendum before anyone could stop him, Mr Sore-Ear
commented, “According to the new maths, 68% of Scottish electors now support
anti-indy parties. Some of those parties
have repugnant views, of course, and if they don’t shape up by 19 September we’ll
be the first to condemn them. But
basically independence is now down to just Alex, Nicola, that specky guy and a ragtag
mob of abusive online scumbag tosser ne’er-do-wells. It’s all over bar the shouting, which
fortunately is my speciality.”

The Tories issued a statement saying, “We don’t normally
comment on arithmetical issues, since our personal assets tend to be weighed
rather than counted, and we have staff to do that. As for
UKIP, they are undoubtedly a squalid bunch of chancers, and there is 0% chance
of us agreeing an electoral pact with them until it becomes greasily expedient. However, as far as the referendum goes, we like
the parts of their name that say “UK” and “dependence Party”, and dislike only
the part that says “In”. So we’re 89.473684%
in agreement with them, which definitely warrants a few congratulatory tweets
and, weather permitting, al fresco naked dancing round a burning sporran.”

In a Good Morning
Scotland interview with Gary Robertson, who had spent the night poring over
Ladybird books trying to find questions easy enough to answer, victorious UKIP
MEP David Coburn asserted that 70% of our laws were made in Europe, although he
couldn’t specify any, had only the haziest appreciation of the concept of “laws”
and wasn’t entirely sure where Europe actually was. His appearance did,
however, confirm a 33% increase in UKIP candidate categories, to include not
just “racists, homophobes and fruitcakes” but also “grimacing buffoons”.

From a heavily guarded bunker in Little England, a UKIP spokesthing
confirmed that the party’s 24 MEPs would be drawing 100% of their expenses and the
bars of Brussels had better be prepared for some “roistering, rogering and regurgitating.” Turning up at the European Parliament every
so often to hurl abuse at Herman van Rompuy would operate on a rota
system, assuming at least a twenty-fourth of them remained sober enough to organise it.

There are sixteen weeks to go until the independence
referendum. Under the old numerical system,
that’s 112 days. Under the new one,
eternity.

Thursday, 8 May 2014

Dog-walkers in the vicinity of BBC Scotland’s Pacific Quay
stronghold are feverishly speculating about the source of the high-pitched
whine they keep hearing. Is it Lord
Reith approaching escape velocity as he rotates in his crypt? Is it fire alarms constantly going off as Better
Together commentators’ underpants spontaneously combust? Or is it simply the squeak of air escaping
from the saggy, patched-up hot-air balloon of the BBC’s credibility?

“We’re not biased, it’s just a series of unfortunate events,”
insists the corporation’s spokesman Lemony Snicket, emerging gingerly from the
front door on the end of a cattle prod. “We can’t explain why every regrettable
blip in our referendum coverage seems to favour the No side, unless of course
the rumours that God hates Alex Salmond are true. But we’ve consulted Professor Brian Cox, who
knows all about string theory, and he says there must be at least one parallel
universe where our output accidentally favours Yes, so we’re legally watertight
on the impartiality front.”

What about the CBI debacle?
“Yes, that was terrible, wasn’t it?
Fortunately, James Cook outed himself as the whistle-blower and was put
on five months’ toilet-cleaning duty before he could do any further
damage. To console him in his exile, his
desk’s been covered in gifts from well-wishers - flowers, whisky, tablet and Wings Over Scotland badges from vicious Cybernats,
and what appears to be a carefully-wrapped alarm clock from Blair McDougall.”

But is the BBC actually going to resign CBI membership, like
other organisations still in possession of a moral compass? “That’s an issue
for senior management in London, whose in-trays you probably don’t realise are
crammed with important stuff. Currently
they’re busy in a farting-about workshop, then next week they’ve got their regular
indoctrination session at MI5, followed by a group shopping excursion to “Tories-R-Us”
to select a new chairman for the BBC Trust.

“In the meantime, we’ve mobilised a squad of unpaid
interns to find out which other organisations we’re involved in without knowing.
Fortunately, it seems that many of them
don’t officially exist, so we don’t have to tell you about them, although you’re
welcome to submit a Freedom of Information request countersigned by five grandparents. As for the others, please note that SAS isn't an airline or a crack military unit - it's Sad Absurd Sycophants, of which royal correspondent Nicholas
Witchell is Life President. I'm also reliably informed that the terrorist organisations Blue Peter inadvertently funded during
the 1970s have now promised to return our milk bottle tops to us.”

How is all this affecting the morale of staff as they
rehearse for becoming unbiased during the formal campaign period? “Oh, it’s a nightmare. We were already struggling to train Kirsty
Wark to interview Alex Salmond without sounding like a hysterical macaque. Then we had a crisis with Jackie Bird, whose
face became stuck when she tried to say the words “Sunday Herald”. Glenn Campbell is forever complaining about
the load of compromisin’ on the road to his horizon. Only Gary Robertson keeps smiling throughout,
but we suspect that it’s because he doesn’t actually have the faintest idea
what’s going on.”

The chaos gradually taking hold has, says Snicket, spurred
the BBC to a momentous decision. “We’ve
decided the only option is to take our referendum coverage entirely out of the
hands of the newsroom, and move it into the area of comedy.”

This opens up tremendous opportunities for the BBC’s team of teenage animators, who did such a great job ridiculing an independent
Scotland’s ability to defend itself on Sunday
Politics Scotland a few weeks back.
“They’ll be getting a regular slot on a new show called Alistair Carmichael’s Cartoon Cavalcade,”
explains Snicket, “where they’ll produce hilarious animations in which Alex
Salmond, dressed as Captain Pugwash, will patrol the coast in an old bathtub, his frustration mounting as Scotland is destroyed by death rays from outer space.”

The animators will also play a large part in the opening
titles of 2014, a side-splitting sitcom
about organising the Commonwealth Games.
“Suffice it to say that the demolition of the Red Road flats is back on
the agenda. Not to mention the Forth
Bridge, the Wallace Monument and of course the Scottish Parliament.”

Meanwhile, Gavin Esler, whose film on the Vote No
Borders group was widely hailed as “comedy genius” after saturation coverage on
BBC News 24, has agreed to bombard viewers with similar masterpieces. “It’s an exciting moment for the debate,” comments
Snicket, “with so many grass-roots campaigns being organised by Conservative
Central Office.” Esler, who has renounced
all aspirations to be Jeremy Paxman in favour of making people pee themselves with
laughter, is hard at work on his follow-up, No
Shit Sherlock, about a group who believes that Scotland should jack in independence
and just let itself be governed by Benedict Cumberbatch.

“We’ve also got big plans for panel shows,” drools Snicket. “Queue? Aye! will feature Stephen Fry and
some of his clever pals making hilarious jokes about how long it will take
Scotland to join the EU. Then there’s Have I Got Trews For You, where teams
led by Alan Cochrane and Susan Calman will discuss the ridiculous costs of the
First Minister’s wardrobe.”

It’s not all good news, though. Snicket still shudders at the memory of the pilot
recording of the new, revamped Just A
Minute. “It was all going fine until
we asked the panel to give the positive case for the Union without hesitation,
deviation or repetition. I think it was
eleven hours before the emergency services broke in and rescued the audience.”

So the BBC is all set for the final straight, it would
appear. Not that things are ever
straight with the Beeb. Isn’t this still,
er, a wee bit biased? “Oh, yes, of
course. But it’s only the Electoral
Commission we have to worry about, and if they get stroppy our smartarse
lawyers will soon have them tied in more knots than Spaghetti Junction. Anyway, just in case we need something to
redress the balance, we’ve got Blair McDougall and Alistair Darling on standby
to be filmed trying to deliver a piano up a long flight of steps.”

What if, despite the Beeb’s valiant efforts, the people of
Scotland still vote Yes? “We’ll have a
group hug, collect our P45s, sprint to a fleet of waiting limousines, watch
Pacific Quay being blown sky-high with dynamite, then do a 100 mph dash with police
escort to Carter Bar, where Rory Stewart and a group of hand-holding acolytes
will be waiting to welcome us to our new lives.”

And if Scotland votes No?
“Ha ha, you’ll get exactly what you deserve. Wall-to-wall Jeremy Clarkson until the end of
time."

About Me

I'm a writer who returned to Scotland in 2013 after 30+ years in the Home Counties. If you enjoy reading my ramblings, please return often and recommend me to your friends on Twitter, Facebook and Planet Earth. That way someone may one day give me money to do this sort of thing, which would be nice.
william_duguid@hotmail.com